


Photograph

by bobbiejelly



Series: More than 13 Reasons Why, you love, your lover... [2]
Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV), Thirteen Reasons Why - Jay Asher
Genre: Angst, Canon Lesbian Character, F/F, Flash Forward, Flashbacks, Lesbian Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:54:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25293508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiejelly/pseuds/bobbiejelly
Summary: Courtney Crimsen can't bring herself to throw away her and Hannah Baker's polaroid picture.
Relationships: Hannah Baker/Courtney Crimsen
Series: More than 13 Reasons Why, you love, your lover... [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1758490
Comments: 8
Kudos: 8





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenLuthor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenLuthor/gifts).
  * Inspired by [girl of your daydreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10660827) by [wheatiswheat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheatiswheat/pseuds/wheatiswheat). 



> Enjoy, RennyWilson, and thanks again for the prompt!

_Author's Note:_

This is written upon a Tumblr request from **RennyWilson.**

Thanks for your patience, I know this took a super long time.

Enjoy! Ps. Heads up though, I've only watched Season 1 of the TV series, though I've read the book in full. Therefore if I'm totally off-canon or missing something, that's why…

And I'd also appreciate not being spoilered for seasons 2-the end right now because I might take up watching this series again someday (maybe?).

Thanks again for the prompt!

_bobbiejelly_

* * *

**Photograph**

* * *

_Courtney Crimsen can't bring herself to throw away her and Hannah Baker's polaroid picture._

* * *

It's been five years since Hannah Baker died and Courtney Crimsen is still holding onto her photograph because she can't seem to trash the damn thing.

Courtney should be able to, objectively speaking, of course.

It's not like those moments were meant to last an eternity; Hannah never loved her.

Not in the way that Courtney loved Hannah, at least.

_Loves Hannah._

Courtney thumbs the 2x4 inch piece of photosensitive paper between her fingers and sighs.

It isn't like this every night, but it's like this sometimes.

Courtney Crimsen, at 22, feels nostalgic for 'the good ol' days,' no matter how successful she is in her professional life, now.

She's headed off to college, as everyone expected her to. She's sat through lectures and sat through seminars. And now she's sitting on her dorm room bed remembering the best kiss she's ever had - and not just because it was her first one… Ever.

_Hannah leaned into her and touched her lips to Courtney's, and Courtney tangled her hands in Hannah's hair._

_Hannah had her arms wrapped around her tender waist and it was warm outside so they were barely wearing shirts at all._

_When Hannah started kissing her back, Courtney felt all the sparks and the shivers they told you about when you're small and you want to hear about a princess story…_

Courtney leans into the headboard and lets out a deep breath.

It's over, it's far from over now. I mean, Hannah's capital-d-dead right now so it's super over-over.

But it was over-over before all of that anyway.

_It was just a 'truth or dare,' and Courtney Crimson picked 'dare,' but what she ended up with was facing her part of the truth; or actually not._

_Courtney called Hannah a s-l-u-t rather than come out to all of her friends and family as a lesbian. Tyler Down and every other boy (and girl? And teenaged person?) in town had all had a copy of his stupid snapshot._

_Some people even confessed to touching themselves to it as teenagers._

Courtney Crimsen never did though, she swears to this and she's actually not a liar.

It's fairly often still that Courtney stares at that picture of her and Hannah, but she's not masturbating or any of that stuff.

She's not imagining herself and a 17-year-old Hannah 'doing it,' because that, at this point in her life, would be really creepy and strange.

Courtney instead remembers how her kisses with Hannah when they'd both been 17 had made her feel.

She felt safe. Cared for. _Almost loved also._

Hannah loved her.

But only in a friendship way.

Courtney had been around to help her stake out the stalker.

Who would have known that said stalker would stalk the very moment she liked to cherish over and over.

_When it was over, Hannah opened her eyes and so did Courtney Crimsen and she stared into Hannah's eyes._

_Courtney had almost told her 'I love you,' right then and there, because she did._

_The way Hannah's lips had been just a little bit swollen from them making out made her believe just in that instant that maybe she wasn't so hopeless with her after all._

Courtney had had this same polaroid around with her in her pocket every day for the past five years of her life.

She had it in one of those trading-card-protectors she'd picked up from the dollar store.

Actually, to be more precise she'd bought it from the Baker's store.

Courtney remembers how Hannah's mother, Olivia Baker, had been there and had greeted her with a friendly smile.

At that point, nobody knew about the tapes or the havoc she'd caused in Hannah's late life.

Courtney herself didn't even fully really know.

_She knows now._

Courtney should have known better back then but she can't take it back now.

Courtney should have known someone could have stalked them from outside that window; she'd insisted on that sleepover to 'catch a creeper,' after all.

Courtney should have known that her party-game-for-two-people would have ended in heartbreak for her (but not necessarily for Hannah), in whatever iteration of it that had happened.

_But she didn't stop Hannah from taking off her top back then._

_But she didn't stop Hannah from complimenting her bra-clad chest._

_But she didn't stop Hannah from leaning in and kissing her right on the lips._

Courtney Crimsen can't change the past at this point and she's not sure that she'd really want to, anyway.

Courtney had made peace with her past and she'd found her true self in the process.

Courtney knows who she is now- she's come out as a lesbian now and her two dads couldn't be prouder- after they'd gotten over the 'lying part,' but that was all to be expected.

_Courtney Crismsen sits in her college dorm room and reminisces about the Hannah Baker that might have been today, had she lived until 22 as she has thus far and counting._

_Courtney thinks about all the things she'd like to share and say with her friend had she apologized and had Hannah forgiven her._

_Courtney imagines all the scenarios in which Hannah could someday love her back._

All those are just pipe dreams though.

Just impossible images that Courtney's imagination summons as she slides her thumb over the original copy of her and Hanna's picture that had been taken that night that had been offered to her in the aftermath.

_(It was half hers, after all, right?)._

Courtney crimson hums along to an Ed Sheeran song on the radio one day and hears the words that describe her situation perfectly:

" _When I'm away…"_ Courtney sings along with bitter tears streaming down her face for the seemingly millionth time.

" _I will remember how you kissed me…"_ Courtney does and she stares at that photograph and tries to taste the coolness of Hannah's lips again as she had for the first time, but this time, she realizes she can't anymore.

More of the song plays on and on and Courtney Crimsen chokes through the words.

All she can feel now is the ending, which packs more of a punch than the rest of the entire song.

" _Wait for me to come home…"_

Courtney Crimsen knows she can't spend her entire life thinking about how the person she'd once thought was the one-sided 'lesbian love of her life,' had once kissed her under the soft lighting of her bedroom during a teenaged silly game.

Courtney knows that some day she'll have to let go of her longings for Hannah and step bravely into the realms of really trying to love someone else.

Courtney knows now it's not cheating if she tries again because hey, Hannah's in heaven now and she's probably got someone 'up there,' to keep her company anyway.

The thought is a bit morbid potentially, but so are all of these thoughts brought on by these stupid polaroids.

_Courtney takes the photograph out of its casing and she presses her lips to it exactly one time._

" _I love you Hannah. I loved you. I still love you but I have to move on…"_

_Courtney files the photograph back into its casing and hides it in the place where she always has. She promises herself this will be the last time she'll think about her now-passed-away friend like this. She hopes for her sake that it will be._

And this time it was.

Ten years on from that date, when Courtney Crimsen finds her and Hannah Baker's photograph again it'll be because she'll be packing out from her graduation from college where she'll file it back in her excitement to share her 'diploma with honors,' with her two dads and her new girlfriend. She doesn't throw it away, but she doesn't need to- she doesn't dwell on it either, at all, at this point in her life.

The next time that Courtney will say to a woman 'I love you,' she'll say it right back to her. And this time, unlike those other times, it will be for real. And Courtney Crimsen is more than okay with that

 _(She'd like to think that Hannah Baker would be happy for both of them, too)_.

* * *

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****** **FIN.**

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_Author's Note:_

Thanks for reading this :D.

This work is inspired by the song "Photograph," by Ed Sheeran.

And also trying to be slightly less cringey than ghost-Denny for Izzie on Grey's… But if it came out super cringe well, so be it. Cheers!

###  [bobbiejelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiejelly/pseuds/bobbiejelly)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again, and RennyWilson, I hope you'll let me know what you think of this. Yes, it's a bit angstier and less 'steamy,' than probably requested, but this is what I was comfortable writing... And I invite you to reach out to another author if you'd like another story of this nature and/or to write for the pairing yourself if you want! Cheers, bobbiejelly.


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